Day 5: Going up up up, going down down down

BIG SUR!







What a lovely area. There's a corny-but-beautiful Beach Boys song (post-Pet Sounds) about this place that I wanted to listen to while driving through, but I didn't have it in my I-pod. I actually can't even remember most of the melody or words, but that chorus "Big Sur, I've got plans for you" has been running through my head ever since. Should I buy another copy of a CD I already own, just so I can hear this song before I head home?

I was ready to stretch my legs when I saw a sign saying "Henry Miller Memorial Library." Which to me sounds like an ideal place to stop. And even better, the place turned out to actually be a nutty artist's colony (with bookstore), who I guess just used the term "Library" to draw people off the road. They don't take this illusion very far, though - the first thing that you see after walking through their gate is *this*, a wire man tied to a crucifix of computer monitors.



A bull's skull in a cage. I like this one a lot, it's very sinister.



Apparently Laurie Anderson appeared here a while back. I've never had the chance to see her and can't think of a better spot than this lovely little store. Further down the wall you can see photos of one of the Library's founders hanging with Jack Kerouac and Lou Reed.



I made it into Monterey later than I was hoping to, which is the price I pay for taking the scenic mountain route. So I wasn't able to see their grand aquarium. I had been there as an early teen, in my awkward days, and had developed and instant, breif crush on this young red-haired girl who worked there. I believe my breif conversation with her was my first attempt to "chat up" a member of the opposite sex. Obviously it wasn't very successful. However I would have liked to have seen the inside of the place again, for nostalgia's sake. Here's part of the exterior:



A restuarant with a name almost as unpleasant as the mysterious popular "Boll Weevil" chain.



Another playground. Not as awesome as a Leathers-designed playground, of course, but still designed to capture the child's imagination. This aspect is totally lacking in those sterile plastic structures you see going into every park these days... I miss the old wooden forts and big metal towers. This one even has a honest-to-god garden maze!





I trekked on to San Jose and stayed the night at Sadie's house. She was watching Harry Potter in spanish (that Sadie, what a nut). We made up our own story for what was going on (easier for me, since I had never seen it before), which had something to do with a magic chalice that rooted out homosexual students, and a spat between Harry and his weasely redhaired lover, Fugglewort. There was one scene that struck me as odd though, even minus our manufactured plot. Harry Potter was taking a bath when this ghost girl pops out and starts trying to peek at his wang. This would have been weird enough in english, but in SPANISH the ghost's voice was like, um, a little girl having an orgasm. I think the dubbing crew wanted to play up the sexual tension, and so decided to recruit a mexican porn star to do the voice... it was *too* funny.